ARISE S.T.E.M. and Pathway courses provide grade level, rigorous instruction and academic supports to all ARISE students to both remediate gaps in S.T.E.M. skills and knowledge, and emphasize critical thinking and problem solving. All S.T.E.M. and Pathway courses at ARISE instill a fundamental interest in S.T.E.M. for each ARISE student by: grounding each course in cultural relevance, aligning each course to our Public and Community Health Pathway, and providing scaffolds and differentiation for each lesson. Through this work, each ARISE student will see themselves in their S.T.E.M. classes as: scientists, health professionals, computer scientists, engineers, mathematicians, or researchers and empower themselves to transform their communities as agents of change.
ARISE Humanities courses provide grade level, rigorous, culturally relevant and responsive instruction that emphasizes the 5 Cs (Warrior Intellectual Skills) of the Graduate Profile (critical thinking, communication, collaboration, community transformation, and critical consciousness), while empowering students to grow into agents of change in their communities through Gold Standard project-based learning and collaborative action research. Knowledge, skills, and agency build over time from 9th through 12th grades to prepare students for college-level coursework and professional careers. Academic supports and differentiation create opportunities for all students to successfully access Humanities courses and help remediate gaps in literacy skills and knowledge.
Warrior Intellectual Skill Rubrics
The 5 C’s of the ARISE Graduate Profile
Academic Departments
Instructional Core Observational Rubric
6 Elements of Excellent Instruction at ARISE
Living out our instructional vision
Teaching & Learning at ARISE
To support ARISE’s mission to empower ourselves with the skills, knowledge, and agency to become highly educated, humanizing, critically conscious, intellectual, and reflective leaders in our community, we believe that (1) teachers must be active collaborators in developing our school, and (2) teachers must be actively supported to develop their teaching craft.
To do this, we have 4 primary professional learning structures: Coaching, Teacher Leadership, Critical Inquiry Groups (CIG), and Professional Development.
1-on-1 Coaching
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We believe that excellent classroom instruction, school operations, and a culture of adult professionalism are the most important element of our success and the realization of our Mission and Vision at ARISE. We believe that a coach’s purpose is to support teachers and staff through their instructional growth. In order to do this, they must build relationships that foster trust. They must create a climate for growth and provide a safe space in which adults can be honest and vulnerable. Coaches at ARISE communicate openly and consistently about expectations, deadlines, schedules, etc. Support teachers in meeting deadlines around instructional agreements including: completing lesson plans, unit plans, and Performance Assessments, PowerSchool, grades, etc. Coaches approach the coaching experience with a growth mindset and willingness to adapt to teacher needs.
Teacher Leadership
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Team Freire: Team Freire is our instructional leadership team at ARISE. It consists of the Head of School, the Deans of Instruction, and four teachers from different disciplines who lead each grade level. Team Freire is responsible for designing, planning, and leading professional development at ARISE, including ensuring PD is aligned to both our Mission and Vision and our school goals. Team Freire will meet on a regular basis to monitor teaching and learning in classrooms in order to continually reflect and revise professional development. Team Freire Grade Level Leads are also responsible for designing and facilitating Academic Familia meetings for all teachers in their grade level. This includes leading studnet support conversations, facilitating cross-content collaboration, leading grade level common expectations and alignment, and modeling and sharing best instructional practices for teachers.
Critical Inquiry Groups
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ARISE High School’s teacher leaders co-create a Professional Development (PD) system that is fully centered on the teacher. As teacher leaders, they are developing and leading a process of professional learning communities that we call Critical Inquiry Groups (CIG).
In CIG, teachers form small groups that work together over two half-year cycles in a collaborative process that focuses on building the strategies and tools of quality teaching as a group. This is a process of identifying challenges, collecting evidence, researching strategies, testing solutions, and providing group feedback. Critical Inquiry Groups then share out their research findings and conclusions with one another at the end of the school year in order to learn from one another’s inquiries.
Professional Development
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We are always being, but also in process of becoming. ARISE believes that what lies at the heart of student achievement are teachers who are highly skilled at their craft. As such, Professional Development holds great value and importance at ARISE. While the ARISE Instructional Core is the framework by which teacher development centers around (see above), there are 6 central structures by which ARISE mediates that development:
- 1 on 1 coaching and formative evaluations of teaching
- Critical Inquiry Groups (CIG)
- Whole Crew Professional Development
- Department Meetings
- Academic Familia (grade level teams)
Learn more about Academics at ARISE:
